Monday, 25 May 2015

Tuppence a Bag

If you are a Mary Poppins fan you may guess from the post title we visited St Paul's Cathedral (no old lady selling bread crumbs though). We decided to do a hop on hop off bus tour of the city. It's a great way to learn about London and all the different sites and you can get off whenever you like to see any of the attractions.

St Paul's was our first stop off and all I can say is WOW! (the first of many). I have seen lots of pictures but until you are standing there you just can't appreciate the enormity of it, particularly inside. Beautiful, enormous and awe inspiring, I almost felt like crying. Unfortunately you're not allowed to take photos inside so you'll just have to take my word for it.

After a guided tour, which was very enlightening and so worth the time, we climbed the 500+ steps to the top of the dome where, as you can see from the picture above, you get to look across London in all directions.

Our next stop off was the Tower of London and another guided tour with a Beefeater (oops thought to take a photo of him). I was surprised at how big it is. It is not just a tower, it's castle that used to be a prison and the main royal residence until Queen Elizabeth I. She didn't like the feel of the place, I'm not sure I'd like to live with prisoners either. Now, of course, it's the Queen's jewellery box and magnificent jewels they are too. It's also a museum with lots of medieval stuff. I loved the armour, some of it is so finely decorated.

Our tour included a cruise along Thames with a running commentary from a fella who could possible make living doing stand up, very funny.

We arrived at the Houses of Parliament just in time to hear Big Ben do his thing.

Photographs just do not do justice to the grandeur a lot of these places and things. The Houses of Parliment is enormous, and I mean HUGE, and yet delicate at the same time. Yes another big WOW!

Despite having quite a bit of daylight left it was "home" time, sore feet, tired legs, hungry and generally pooped.